


Conscience

by Blackbird Song (Blackbird_Song)



Category: Donald Strachey Mysteries (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, Character Study, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:25:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackbird_Song/pseuds/Blackbird%20Song
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim struggles with where it's most important for him to be on Christmas Eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conscience

**Author's Note:**

> Another one written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/tim_don_a_thon/profile)[**tim_don_a_thon**](http://community.livejournal.com/tim_don_a_thon/) challenege. Many thanks to my husband for the beta.

It was odd sitting here. There were so many things wrong with it, from the people between whom he was sandwiched to the place where he was sitting to the very fact that he was here at all. He shouldn't be here. He didn't believe in being here. He didn't support the agenda of the current leadership.

It was also just weird sitting where he was, all the way in the back, when he should be up front. He'd always been in the front growing up, always been near his father. And then when the time came, he'd gone from sitting with his father to serving Father – progressing from carrying candles to carrying the cross to ringing the communion bells. He'd always wondered as he'd knelt on the altar steps and looked up to follow the reenactment of the Last Supper what it would be like to be the one standing at the altar – the one person standing in the church at that most sacred moment – adjuring the congregation to "Do this in memory of me." How must it feel to bear the Word of Christ to thousands of people – to stand as a beacon in a dark and troubled world rapidly losing sight of all that was important and good? Terrifying? Exhilarating? Both? Young Timmy Callahan had always been a good altar boy, and everyone had told him he'd make a good priest.

Then he went into the Seminary and everything changed. Looking from the outside in was very different from looking from the inside out. He'd always known that about politics, of course, which made the discoveries in Seminary all the more devastating. He wondered how he'd never known about all the sex that happened behind the scenes. He wondered how he'd not deciphered the political intent behind Monsignor O'Rourke's visits for supper once a month. And then there was the way the Church viewed him. He wondered now whether or not it had been a good idea to leave the Seminary as he had entered it: a physical virgin.

He'd wondered why he was sitting here, all the way in the back of the church with the draft from the door billowing around him and the fidgeting, grumbling teenager of indeterminate gender preference on his right and the booze-soaked woman on his left, for all of two seconds. You could take the boy out of the church, but you couldn't ever take the Church out of the boy, or the glory and mystique of Midnight Mass out of Christmas, which always resurrected the boy in Timmy.

So he sang the same Christmas carols he'd sung as a child – the ones that always meant something important when they were sung and heard in their proper context away from money, glitz and the plastic politics of commercialism and family values. Then again, Midnight Mass was itself a sort of glitz. Sort of a spectator sport for non-believers, especially in a really big city cathedral. And yet he knew of at least one woman who'd been drawn into the church through her experience of going to Midnight Mass one Christmas. And if people got one night – hell, even one hour – of spiritual guidance in the year, whether or not they were regulars, wasn't that better than nothing? The Church had always been good at 'blinging up' their ceremonies, if he listened to one rather irreverent yet devout coworker of his.

Pondering the ins and outs of Catholic theology and theocracy, its taint and corruption and why he was doing what he was doing in spite of it, he came to realize that he missed this. He missed the Church. He missed the arguments over points of theology and the confusion amongst the parishioners of whether to genuflect to the tabernacle and bow to the altar or vice versa, and what the difference was when the tabernacle was located directly behind the altar. He missed Mrs. Mars waving everyone off and saying, "Well I've got bad knees, so it don't matter to me." Mostly, though, he missed the experience of going to church. He missed the ritual not just of the service itself, but of dressing for church – of waiting by the door as his mom helped Kelly get ready when he was young, and then listening to Kelly fuming at the door as he fussed with his tie when they got older. He missed the big family breakfast afterwards – "No food before communion," his mom and dad had always said.

He missed being a part of a community of faith. It wasn't the same thing as living in a neighborhood or being in a family. He missed his family. As he turned to shake hands with the grumpy teen and the drunk during the sign of peace, he felt a pang of recognition that despite Donald's having found Kelly for them again, things were still so distant, so fraught. No amount of acceptance on their part of one another's sexual orientations or political divergences would ever make up for the frozen wasteland of emotional landscape inherited from and passed down by generations of even more distant Callahans. He took after his mother, on that front, though he'd had to hide it. And Kelly had been caught squarely in the middle, with nobody to stand up for her.

_"You can't blame yourself,"_ Donald had told him repeatedly, in one way or another.

_"I was the older brother. I should have taken care of her,"_ he'd always replied in some form.

Donald.

He rose from the pew and made his way to the communion station at the back of the church. Queasy as he suddenly felt about taking communion in the first place, it was probably just as well that he didn't make a point of going all the way to the front of the church to take it from the priest – a man he didn't recognize, which told him just how long he'd been absent from the Church – as he had initially planned to do. Should he go through with this? Should he support a church that he had left for reasons that were still good? Should he just take the bread and know that he was doing as Christ had said in the Bible, rather than worrying about what denomination it came from? Should he just flee and run home to Donald?

_"Do whatever you want," Donald had said, hurt. And then he'd turned around. "Look, I don't get this whole church thing, Tim, but I don't want to interfere with your conscience. Do whatever you think is right, okay?"_

"Okay," Tim had said. And he'd left without another word or backward glance.

Tim nearly bolted out the church door right then. He hurt and ached and wished he and Donald hadn't fought like that, that he hadn't dug his heels in and gone off to Midnight Mass like that. Wished he hadn't caught that glimpse of sincerity in Donald's voice and understood it the way he had and did, because now, he'd have to stick out the remainder of the service and do exactly as Donald had said he should: follow his conscience. Partake of the bread and wine and remember who he was and what church and Church had made him, because that was a huge part of the man Donald loved, and he loved Donald beyond all things. Even God, he thought, as he bowed and said "Amen" as the Extraordinary Minister laid the wafer in his cupped palm. He put the wafer in his mouth and let it dissolve as he went to the person offering the wine. Even God, he thought again, as he bowed and said "Amen" as he took the cup and drank. And as he swallowed, feeling the burn of the wine down the back of his throat, he got that little message that he sometimes got: "That's okay." It always came with a sort of felt smirk that said something along the lines of, 'no, you don't understand why, and that's how I want it.'

And then he got the strong message to go home.

*****

It took an hour to make a drive that should only have taken twenty minutes. The snow had been absent when he'd left for church, and now it was six inches thick on the road and falling fast. Uncharacteristically, the plows weren't out. He'd never driven alone at this hour on a snowy Christmas Eve before, so he'd never seen just how beautiful Albany could be in the white silence of a Christmas night snow. And he'd never ached so much for Donald to be with him, sharing this moment that was too much to spend by himself.

Tim Callahan loved snow, loved winter, loved the cold, but even he couldn't tell anymore whether the tears in his eyes as he finally arrived home, finally turned off the ignition, finally stepped out of the car into eight inches of new snow and began the trek to his front door were due to a simple matter of cold air or to the overwhelming need to be with Donald again, and to make up for the time together that he'd lost them.

Donald was on the couch, seemingly lost in thought, though Tim knew that he'd either fallen asleep or was studiously avoiding looking at him. Tim knew also that approaching Donald from behind while he was asleep anywhere but in their bed was likely to get him tossed across the room before he could say hello. On the other hand, doing that while Donald was awake was sometimes the best way to ease through both their walls. And maybe he deserved to be tossed across the room. Or at least could tolerate it just this once. Couldn't be any worse than being knocked out—

"You going to come over here, or are you just going to stand there and think loudly?"

Tim started to move—

"Take off your coat. It's covered with snow."

"Oh." Tim shrugged off his coat and hung it quickly on the coat stand, not even noticing the snow scattered on the floor and creating a slip hazard that he thought he should clean up—

And then Donald shifted in that way that meant that he hurt, and Tim didn't care anymore.

Tim slid into the space closest to Donald. "I'm so sorry—"

"I'm sorry," said Donald at the same time.

And then they were in each other's arms, and Tim hadn't realized how cold he was until that moment.

"Jesus, Tim! What happened? Did you walk home?"

"No. And I had the heat on," said Tim, reveling in the feel of Donald's arms and hands drawing him in and rubbing his arms and back.

"And then you stood in the hall for an hour and a half and let the snow soak in."

Tim pulled back to glare at Donald, but couldn't hold it. He laughed, and that set Donald off, and then they were kissing. And then they were kissing more. "I'm so sorry I left you like that," said Tim, at last, searching Donald's eyes and stroking his hair.

Donald gazed back at him for a long, searching moment before running gentle knuckles down his cheek. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," said Tim, his voice breaking as he cradled Donald's head in his hand.

Donald brushed away the tears that fell before Tim could stop them. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

And that only caused more tears, which Tim knew he shouldn't bother to hide, but tried to anyway. And failed. "Not in church," he said.

And then that same voice that had told him to go home at the church said, "Hey!" in a rather boomy way inside something in his head.

"I mean," said Tim, quickly, "yes I did." And then he took a deep breath. "God booted me out."

"What?" Donald pulled back and stared.

"I was taking communion and thinking of how much I love you, which is even more than God, and I got the sense that that was all right with, you know, God, and then he told me to go home."

Donald's hand shot out to Tim's forehead. "Have you taken anything? Drunk something at a bar that you let out of your sight? Been out in the cold for too long?"

"If I say that God's been talking to me since I was a little boy, are you going to have me taken away?"

"Probably, yeah."

"Then I won't say it." Tim pulled away and faced the fire, more troubled than he wanted to be.

"Look, Tim, I ... geez, I don't even know—"

"I know it sounds crazy," said Tim, "and I don't mean that I hear voices in my head, exactly, it's just...."

"Just ... what?"

"I just get this sense, sometimes. Like, yes, what I'm thinking is okay, or no it's not, or just 'hold on, a minute', or 'well done'. I can't explain it, and I don't really feel like putting it down to modern psychology or some sort of deformed part of my brain—"

"I think I understand," said Donald, softly.

"You do?" Tim looked around at him. "Because I sure don't!"

Donald laughed silently. "What does this sense of yours say most often?"

Tim was silent for a long time as he composed himself. "'Don't forget me'."

"Then I don't think that God booted you out." Donald put an arm around Tim's shoulders and squeezed.

"Really?" Tim let the tears fall, because if there'd been one thing he'd learned about crying, it was that the loss of God's love was a thing to cry about. Only he'd never thought he'd be in the situation where he was seriously looking at that possibility, or that it would get to him like this, if he were.

"Any god who'd boot you out of his church would have to be out of its mind," said Donald, kissing Tim's cheek far more fervently than Tim thought the conversation required and making him melt in the process.

"You think so?" said Tim, trying to pull himself back together.

"If there were ever a poster child for how Christianity should work, it would be you," said Donald, utterly serious.

Tim just choked back a sob and winced inside.

"No, I mean it," said Donald, resettling himself to face Tim. "Look, you know I don't get this whole church thing, and why I don't, but when I look at you, I totally understand why people believe in it."

Tim felt like he couldn't breathe.

"You're the best person I know, and I love you so much I can't—" Donald's voice cracked, making Tim wonder how either of them would get through this. "I can't even tell you how much," he managed at last, only just barely. "But there are other people out there that do some of the same things, that live selfless lives and do what Christ said to do without beating everyone up for it, and they make the world a better place. And if I had that thing you had? The one where you can see the good in people more than the bad? I might miss going to church as much as you do."

Tim broke, then, and let Donald hold him against it. "I love you," he managed to breathe into Donald's skin.

"I love you, too," said Donald into Tim's hair. And then he took a deep, impossibly shaky breath. "And if you need to go to church, you do that," he said fiercely, fingers digging into Tim's shoulders for emphasis.

Tim wished that he could say something. Wished that he could say, 'No, honey. No, I don't need to go to church, because everything I need is right here in my arms, and even God knows that, now.' And even God knew not to twit him too much right then, Tim noted, because God also knew that Tim couldn't really say that. Not in all truth. And Tim knew that Donald had already grasped that. But all Tim could do was cry, and be embarrassed by it, and try to know that Donald didn't mind too much, because this wasn't a regular thing with him, and Donald had always claimed to love him for his vulnerability as well as his strength.

And when Tim's tears abated some and his chest unlocked enough so he could speak, he managed a very wet, "Okay, but no more Midnight Mass. Christmas is for you."

"Thank you," said Donald, burying his face in Tim's neck.


End file.
